Grass on the roadway: Leave it be?

December 17, 2012|Dan Hartzell | The Road Warrior

Q: Could you please comment on the behavior of those inconsiderate knuckleheads who spray their grass clippings into the street while mowing their lawn? As a motorcyclist, I have occasionally been placed in a hazardous situation due to the presence of a slippery, grass-covered roadway. By the way, these are the same yahoos who plow and shovel their snow into the road each winter.

— Mike Obenski, Upper Milford Township

A: At first I steered your late-August question deep into my email garage, Mike, because my gut reaction went along the lines of, "Well geez, you Harley guys have to be a little more careful out there. Property owners can't be expected to sweep every few blades of grass the mower happens to toss to the edge of the travel lane back to the gutter. Deal with it!"

Three months later on my drive to work, I noticed a guy using a power blower to send the leaves from the lawn not to the street at curbside, but pretty far into the travel lane. The result is depicted in today's photo; The leaves aren't quite in the tire path yet, but they're getting close. Any farther and they could yield a loss of traction, especially when wet, vastly increasing vehicular stopping distances to the point of being dangerous. As we'll see later, those leaves were collected quickly, avoiding any problems.

Grass clippings might not reach the same threat level as leaves, but freshly mowed blades with their high moisture content, and surely wet grass on the road, and enough of it, might very well raise legitimate concerns for those piloting motorcyclists, bicycles, and even cars.

It's less common to see clippings very far into the road — in fact, I don't think I've ever seen mowed grass in the dead center of a travel lane — though I might be missing some instances. The condition may occur more often on rural roads where expansive properties require mowing equipment powerful enough to scatter debris far into the roadway.

I'm not sure this ranks very highly on the safety-threat scale, but I suppose property owners should take reasonable steps to keep the grass off the street, Mike. A quick turn with a broom, or even running the mower briefly (and carefully!) along the street to direct the grass back to the edge, would be commendable.

As a matter of law, I can find no provision of the state Vehicles Code that addresses too much grass or too many leaves on the roadway. Can leaves or grass be considered obstructions? Maybe in large enough piles, but I've never seen such quantities. Some municipalities might have ordinances that specifically require leaf removal from the streets for safety reasons, but mostly, leaves are collected as a service the public expects. Some municipalities ask residents to put their leaves in bags or trash cans, clearly keeping them off the roadway, while others, including Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, instruct property owners to place them curbside to be sucked up by vacuum trucks.

Bethlehem officials are considering leaf collection options as part of an ongoing debate over single-contract versus independent-company trash collection, but leaves will be collected seasonally in the Christmas City regardless of how all that turns out, said Public Works Director Mike Alkhal, who oversees the current city-run leaf service.

"It's not a regulation per se, but … there's got to be some means to accommodate property owners to dispose of their leaves," Alkhal said.

In cities and developed suburban areas, it would be impractical to "let them lay," as it were. We love our deciduous trees, and plant many of them, but their seasonal gift, despite being fully biodegradable, doesn't mesh well with our roadways. Like vehicles on Route 22 at rush hour, too many of them come down the road in too short a time.

Excess leaf debris can clog storm water inlets, resulting in pooling, which is particularly dangerous in winter because of roadway icing. Residents often are asked to try to keep storm grates on neighborhood streets clear, and sometimes municipal crews are dispatched to clean grates during or in advance of storms.

Even when leaves are raked to the curbside where they belong, they can create a fire hazard if they're piled too high, Alkhal said. (Think hot exhaust pipes.) And yes, "If the leaves are on the street all the time, and it's raining, they become very slippery, so it's not safe for motorists," he said, while adding that that he rarely if ever sees leaves in the travel lanes in large enough quantities to pose safety threats. Leaves that find their way into the lanes on their own generally are swept away by the force of passing traffic.

"I rarely see people being that irresponsible [as to be] blowing them into the street," Alkhal said.